Chase Tinker & The House of Magic (2 page)

"Help me take his jacket," said Ben, grasping
the man's arm. "It'll be even colder outside than it is in
here."

"You take it," Clair said, after they were
finished. "You need it more than I do."

Slipping on the warm jacket, Ben followed her
up the stairs. When they reached the next door, without opening it,
she stuck her head through, then pulled back. "All clear."

They snuck as swiftly as possible around
corners, through doorways and down gloomy, cobwebby passageways. At
last, they were outside, their backs pressed against the rough
stones of a high wall. Hearts pounding, they both knew they were a
long way from being out of danger.

The moon was now hidden behind the large
thicket of trees they could see in the distance. They huddled
together as a chilly wind rippled through the grass and brush and
caused eerie, flickering shadows to dance all around them. They had
to be far away from there before the sun came up. And, if things
weren't bad enough, it looked as though a storm was blowing in.

Ben took a deep, fortifying breath.
"Ready?"

Clair squeezed his hand. "I always am."

Bending low, the brother and sister dashed
across the wide open field.

"Almost there!" Ben gasped out.

Right as they dove into the bushes, an arrow
slammed into the tree next to them and shattered the bark. They ran
for their lives.

H
ooooonk! Honk!
Honk!

"Hey ya, kid! Look where you're goin'!"

The taxi driver shook his fist at Chase
Tinker as he ran across the busy street and leaped onto the
sidewalk.

"Sorry!" Chase yelled back with a quick
wave.

He skidded to a stop in front of a small
grocery store. Pictures of ice cream cones and popsicles were taped
to the windows. Licking his lips, he dug in his pockets for some
money. His shorts were so worn that one pocket had several holes in
the bottom of it. In the other, he found nothing but a crumpled
Derek Jeter baseball card, a fuzzy gummy worm, and his lucky race
car from an old board game.

Scratching his nose, he squinted at the
posters again, and then sauntered into the shadowy, cool store. He
strolled down an aisle to the freezer section. Glancing casually
over his shoulder, he opened one of the glass doors. White fog
puffed out, chilling his face as he reached in and snatched one of
the paper-wrapped cones. Head down, eyes on his scurrying feet, he
was almost out into the hordes of New Yorkers when his arm was
grabbed from behind.

"Hold it, sonny! Where do you think you're
going?" growled a deep voice. "You didn't pay for that."

Chase's heart skipped several beats as he
stumbled and stared up into a gray-haired man's bushy-eyebrowed
face. Chase was tall for his age, but, man, this guy towered over
him by at least a foot and a half.

"I—" he croaked.

"Chase Tinker!" spat the shopkeeper. "I'm not
one bit surprised." He shook his head. "Out troublemaking again,
eh? Took me an hour to wash all those rotten tomatoes off my front
windows last week, mister. Well, I'll take you home to your folks
today, but you better hope they do something about you or I won't
be so nice next time." He looked to the rear of the store and
yelled, "Hey, Louise! I'll be back in a bit. I've nabbed another
shoplifter I need to take care of." He tossed the ice cream back
into the freezer. "Okay, kid, lead the way."

The man kept a tight grip on Chase's arm as
they headed down the sidewalk. Chase scrunched his face as the
man's fingers dug into his skin, making Chase feel as if it were
crushed in a subway door.
What a sucky way to start my summer
vacation
, he thought while his stomach twisted into knots.

After a short walk to Chase's apartment
building, they pushed through the revolving door and entered a
lobby with peeling wallpaper and stained carpet. Hurrying into one
of the old elevators, they stood in silence as it clanked and
rattled its way to the tenth floor. Chase tapped his foot and
jiggled his leg. Yep. His mom would ground him for life for this
one.

He could see his thin face reflected in the
gold button-panel. It was the color of toothpaste, while his
dark-brown hair and eyes looked as black as charcoal in the dim
overhead light.
Too bad this elevator doesn't have a button to
blast me straight to the moon,
he thought glumly as the doors
slid open.

At the end of the hallway, he took a deep
breath and opened the brown, paint-chipped door. "Mom, I'm home!"
he hollered as they stepped into the apartment. The man released
Chase's arm. He rubbed the sore spots and wondered if he had
finger-shaped bruises now.

"Chase, where have you been?" called Anne
Tinker as she hurried down the hallway, buttoning her sweater, her
hazel eyes flashing and her strawberry-blonde ponytail bouncing.
"You know I need you to stay with Andy while I do my shift at the
hospital!" She paused when she saw Chase wasn't alone. "Oh, Mr.
O'Brien, what can I do for you?"

"Mrs. Tinker, I'm sorry to say, I just caught
your son stealing from my store," he said.

Chase had to stop himself from giving a rude
snort.
Sorry? Yeah, right
, he thought snidely.

Anne looked wide-eyed at her son. "Chase? Why
on earth would you do something like that?"

Chase stared at the floor as he scuffed his
toe on the carpet. "You know why!" he blurted out.

Mr. O'Brien's eyes shifted from Chase to his
mother. He cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling. "Well…uh,
I thought you should know he's been causing some trouble in the
neighborhood lately and if it doesn't stop, I'll have to call the
cops next time."

Her face glowing like a neon sign, Anne
grabbed Mr. O'Brien's shirt sleeve and pulled him into the hall.
"Thank you so much for bringing him home," she whispered. "I'll
have a long talk with him and, I promise, this won't happen
again."

"I hope not, or before you know it, you'll
have a juvenile delinquent on your hands," he said before turning
and walking back to the elevator.

Anne shut the door and heaved a long sigh as
she sagged against it. Chase still stood in the middle of the
living room. A television, tables and a dark-blue sofa and
armchair, both covered with colorful pillows, were crammed into the
small space.

She crossed her arms and stared at him. "I
really can't believe this. Running around like a—like a hooligan!
Breaking the law! You're lucky he cared enough not to call the
police."

Chase shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm
sorry," he mumbled. "It's just…Dad's been gone for way over a year
now and you put away all his stuff like he's not coming back. It's
like you don't care anymore! Me and Andy hardly ever see you
because all you do is work. I hate coming home! In fact, the way
things are, it doesn't even feel like home anyway!" The longer the
words poured out, the louder his voice grew. "And I know you think
I'm just a kid who doesn't know about grown-up stuff, but I can see
without Dad here to help that things aren't going very well. I only
wanted some ice cream!"

Anne looked as though Chase had just punched
her in the stomach. "I've—I've never stopped caring. I'm doing my
best." She blinked several times, as if trying not to cry. "And
I've done everything I can to find him. You causing trouble sure
isn't helping."

"Whatever."

"And just what do you mean by that?" she
asked, propping her hands on her hips.

"Forget it! What's the use?" With one last
glare at her, he ran down the hall and into his room. He turned to
close the door, but, BAM! It banged shut by itself.

He swung back his foot to kick a soccer ball
across the room, but before he could, it shot into the air. His
eyes bulged as it ricocheted off the walls before crashing into a
lamp. The ball then whipped back across the room and whomped him on
the head.

"Argh!" he cried as he dropped onto his bed
and ran his hands through his hair. Now, on top of everything else,
it happened
again
—things moving by themselves, as if his
life wasn't crappy enough.

The thing was, he had no idea how to control
this strange—power—or whatever it was. Or how to make it go away.
Or where it could've possibly from, for that matter. It seemed to
happen more often when he was angry or upset. Was it some sort of
magic? He wasn't sure if he believed in any of that crazy
supernatural nonsense.

More than anything, he wished his dad was
there to help with everything, but it was as if Benjamin Tinker had
vanished off the face of the planet.

"What's going on, Dad?" he muttered. "Don't
you know we all still need you around here?” Until his dad's
disappearance, Chase hadn't been a troublemaker. He wasn't sure why
he did it. He knew it was wrong to steal and to vandalize other
people's property, but he was just so angry and frustrated with
everything right now. Where the heck was his dad? Did he really
leave them? Or—Chase hated to think it—was he…dead?

No!
He can't be
, he thought,
because I know I'd somehow feel it if he were.

Wondering why everything had to suck so much,
he stood and wandered around the small, overcrowded bedroom he
shared with his younger brother, Andy. Two rumpled bunk beds and an
old, scratched-up dresser were pushed against the walls that were
plastered with posters of comic book super-heroes and sports
people. The floor and the closet were both cluttered with clothes
and old, discarded toys.

Stopping in front of the dresser, he took a
shiny marble from its messy top and placed it in the palm of his
hand. He glanced at his reflection in the dusty mirror on the wall.
I don't
know what's causing it
, he thought,
but
there has to be a way to control this magic thing
,
or
whatever it is
. Maybe if he could, he wouldn't mind it so much.
Maybe he just needed to take some time to practice.

His hand trembled as he closed his eyes and
tried to clear everything from his mind except moving the marble.
Opening his eyes, he stared down at it and concentrated, hard. He
tried with all his might to force his thoughts into the shiny glass
ball. He thought his head might explode from all the brain-waves
shooting through it.

A minute later, both the dresser and the
marble began shaking like crazy, and then stopped. Chase stumbled
back. "Whoa!" He took a deep breath and stared at the marble again;
willing it to move. "Come on," he murmured. "You can do it."

It rolled in a circle. Carefully, he pulled
his hand away. The marble whirled in midair. Then all of sudden, it
was like it had a mind of its own. It sped toward him and slipped
down his shirt. "Hey!" He wiggled and jerked like a wild hip-hop
dancer as the marble skittered all around his body before getting
stuck in his armpit. He yanked the marble free. "Crummy marble!" he
muttered, glaring at it. "Okay, this time for sure."

He held it in his hand and stared at it
again. "Move, move!" The marble rose into the air. He squinted in
concentration and made it spin across the room. His heart thumping
madly, he grabbed another one and did the same thing. Soon he had
several marbles zipping through the air.

He grinned and reached for another right as
the door burst open and Andy barreled into the room. The marbles
dropped to the floor.

"Wow!" exclaimed Andy. "Did you see that? Did
you see those marbles flying?"

Chase flopped back onto the bottom bunk bed.
"You're seeing things." He snorted as he tried to sound as
nonchalant as possible. "Flying marbles. Yeah, right."

Andy rubbed his eyes. "But I—"

"By the way, where are your glasses?" Chase
cut in. "No wonder you see marbles cruising around the room. You
know Mom hates it when you don't wear them."

Andy pulled a pair of dark-framed eyeglasses
from his pocket and slipped them on. "I know," he muttered. "I
don't like them, is all."

"Is she gone?"

"Yeah, she was worried she was going to be
late," said Andy. "She fixed spaghetti for us to warm-up for
dinner."

"Was she real mad?"

Andy shrugged. "She just looked sad." He
picked up a marble and rolled it between his fingers. "I heard what
you said. We all miss Dad, you know. That's why she works so much.
It's so she doesn't have to think about it."

Chase propped himself on his elbows and
looked at his younger brother, who everyone said looked exactly
like him. He knew Andy was right. "I don't think any of us wants to
think about it."

He jumped to his feet, suddenly needing to be
out and away from the cramped, stuffy apartment. He didn't want to
talk about his dad anymore. It made his chest ache. The moment of
happiness he'd felt when he was controlling the strange power was
gone now.

To be honest, he felt lousy about the
shoplifting, and the mean things he'd said to his mom. She'd once
told him he was just like his dad, acting before thinking about the
consequences. He sighed. And the truth was, he knew how hard things
were on her, and the time she spent crying and wandering around
their apartment.

When Dad gets home, he better have some
darn good reasons for causing us all this trouble,
Chase
thought before saying out loud, "Tell you what. Let's get the heck
outta this place and go play some soccer."

"Honest? Cool! I'll get the ball."

As they waited at a traffic light a short
time later, Andy glanced up at his brother. "Hey, Chase, did you
know it's my half-birthday today? I'm 10 ½ now."

Chase smiled at him. "I thought you looked a
little older," he teased.

Andy smiled back. "Well…you know my
birthday's on Christmas and I always get gypped out of presents, so
maybe I should get some today. What do you think?"